Let your child know that nothing they say will be used against them. You are using this to help you be a better parent.

Don’t be defensive at any answers from your child.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Ask follow up questions. “Oh, what do you mean by that?”

I also recommend using Swipe It App to break the ice with your kids. Swipe It is an app I created to make family time fun again. It’s full of fun icebreakers.

THE SCORECARD

Question 1 = Your rating
We start out with our rating. At first this question was ‘on a scale of 1 to 5’. That didn’t test well so I switched that to emojis, mucho better.

I still count each emoji as a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (from left to right).

Question 2 – What is one thing you are grateful for that I do?We want to start with some positive feedback. This question gives your children time to think about something you are doing well.

We all know we you give feedback it’s good to start out with something positive then get into the ‘needs improvement’ part.

Question 3 – What is one thing I could do better?
This is the ‘need improvement’ question. The first time I asked my son (age 8) this question he thought about it for a while then said ‘well, I wish that you would play Bloons (an app) when we’re not here so you wouldn’t be so distracted and could talk with us’. Ouch, and double ouch. But, it was what I needed to hear, loud and clear.

Question 4 – What’s something important to you that I may not know about? A relationship? Something that hurts?The goal of this question is to look in my blind spots. Something I may not notice that the kid does. Is it school, someone in the neighborhood, are they feeling left out of something. This is the most confusing question with my kids so far. You may need to tweak it a bit so they understand it.

Question 5 – What would make this week amazing for you and I?
Surprisingly this hasn’t resulted in ‘buy me legos’ or ‘buy me a new video game’. What I have gotten is requests for 1-on-1 time with me. I’m a big fan of doing ‘man-dates’ with the kids. 1-on-1 times with the kids. They crave these, they need these.

Bonus QuestionsThese are meant to give you a little more ammunition during the conversation. If you kiddo is stumbling through any of the questions above feel free to grab one of these questions to break the ice a little more. You can also use the Swipe It App to break the ice as well.

MEASURE YOUR PARENTING

That’s it. That’s the parenting scorecard. Print it out, carry it around, look for opportunities to use it with your kids.

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Mike lives life by the motto "Adventure is Out There". He's a foster parent, adoptive parent, and even went the biological route (twice). Mike likes MMA, video games, hiking, making websites, and (lots of) coffee. You can find him at MikeRuman.com. Oh, and he is the founder of Parenting Academy.